Danger in a Red Dress (25 page)

This kind of honesty was what came of having a chauffeur and bodyguard who was also a friend. So Gabriel ignored the implied criticism of Carrick, and concentrated on Daniel’s praise for Nathan Manly’s other sons. “They are great, aren’t they?”

“Yes, and to see you come together this summer, and bring all your families—Mr. Roberto from Italy, Mr. Mac from back east and Mr. Dev from South Carolina—well, that did my heart good. That’s what you’ve wanted ever since I’ve known you, to find your blood kin and be folks with them.”

Recalling their Fourth of July picnic at Gabriel’s ranch, and how much fun they’d had, Gabriel relaxed. “It was like one huge, rambunctious, extended family.”

“It wasn’t
like
that. That’s what it
was
.” Daniel got right in Gabriel’s face. “And where was Mr. Carrick?”

“He was . . . busy.” Which Gabriel knew was code for
not interested
.

“Huh.”

Daniel was right. Carrick was no kid, yet Gabriel thought of him that way. He went to clubs, he hung out with celebrities, his only income seemed to come from interviews about his mother’s death, and that showed a ghoulish lack of heart.

Gabriel knew all that, but . . . Carrick was his
brother
. In his most assured tone, he said, “I’ll let Carrick know what’s going on when I’ve got all the answers.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

Gabriel woke to bright daylight, a thermometer stuck in his ear, and Dr. Bellota’s voice booming, “Prescott, you are the luckiest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.”

Gabriel opened his eyes a slit. “I was, until you showed up.”

Dean Bellota boomed with laughter. “I’d say you were surly because you’re convalescing, but these days, you’re always surly.”

Daniel laughed, too.

Gabriel was not amused.

From the head of the bed and off to the side, Hannah said, “Gentlemen, you’re upsetting the patient.”

Under the cool rebuke, the guys changed their laughs to coughs.

Gabriel pulled himself up into a sitting position and turned to look at her.

She stood clad in his pajamas and robe, holding an armful of pillows, looking like hell. She was pale, her mouth taut, her eyes shadowed.

Yet with a reassuring smile, she leaned across the mattress and stacked the pillows behind him. “Dr. Bellota is here to do your exam, but your temp is normal and your color is good. I’m sure this is merely a formality.”

“For God’s sake, Grace,” Gabriel growled, “sit down before you fall down.”

At his words, she went from pale to pasty. Leaning against the headboard, she said, “I’m fine.”

Dr. Bellota put his hand under her arm. “This is what happens when you don’t listen to your doctor. I told you to get off your feet.”

Gabriel grimaced with pain, but he moved to the side. “Lay her down here.”

“I’m fine,” Hannah repeated.

No one paid any attention.

Daniel placed a pillow.

Dr. Bellota manhandled her onto the mattress.

Everyone viewed her prone figure with concern.

“I’m
fine
!” she snapped with finality.

“Let me decide that.” Dr. Bellota checked her pulse, blood pressure, and temperature. He checked her pupils and listened to her lungs. Finally he unwrapped her wrist and looked it over, his brow knit. He cast a meaningful glance at Gabriel.

Gabriel nodded.

“You’re right, Grace,” Dr. Bellota said. “You are fine.”

“I told you so.” She started to sit up.

Dr. Bellota pressed her back down. “Except that you’re suffering from exhaustion and malnutrition, and I’m sending over a plastic surgeon to look at this wrist. You’ll need stitches, antibiotics, pain relief, not to mention complete bed rest and three meals a day.”

She tried to object.

Dr. Bellota spoke right over the top of her. “Plus a few snacks.”

Daniel slipped out of the room, and came right back with a tray with two steaming bowls. “I was going to serve this to you when the doctor left, but let’s have it now.”

She watched him organize the meal. “I am making extra work for Daniel.”

“It’s chicken and dumplings.” Daniel placed the tray across her lap.

She took a long breath of the rich, meaty, thyme-scented broth, and her complexion flushed.

Gabriel wanted to swear. She had been on the run. She had been starving. And while he knew she deserved every last misery she’d visited upon herself, he couldn’t stand to think of her suffering.

“Don’t you worry, Miss Grace.” Daniel put a spoon in her fist. “As long as you stay right here, caring for two cranky invalids shouldn’t be much different than caring for one.”

“Right here?” She laughed weakly and took the first spoonful. Her eyes half closed in pleasure. “You mean in this apartment.”

With good humor and an almost-imperceptible twinkle of mischief, Daniel said, “If you were across that big living room, that would be an inconvenience, but as long as you’re sharing this king-sized bed with Mr. Prescott, I can keep an eye on you both.”

Gabriel shot him an admiring look. Daniel was a diabolical genius. Now she was confined to his bed. With Daniel to stand guard against any murderous “incidents,” the forced intimacy of two people in a king-sized bed, and a little artfully applied flattery on his part, she would soon tell him what he wanted to know.

She flung a horrified glance at Gabriel. “No, I . . . I can’t sleep with Mr. Prescott!”

“Now, Miss Grace.” Daniel’s voice rumbled with reassurance. “As badly as you two are banged up, no one’s going to think there’s a horizontal tango going on. Heck, Mr. Prescott’s too weak to even hum the tune.”

“Daniel,” Gabriel said threateningly.

Hannah’s pale face blushed a rosy red. “Daniel, you do not want to fix twenty meals a day for me.”

“Three meals and two snacks,” Dr. Bellota said.

“Daniel
doesn’t
cook. He
does
takeout,” Gabriel said.

“Since this is going to go on for a while, I’m going to call one of those services that delivers meals to the house.” Daniel headed out the door. “That way, we can control the nutrition.”

“Good plan, Daniel,” Gabriel approved. Among the three of them, they were closing the door on Hannah’s prison.

She scowled and tried very hard to sound authoritative—difficult while eating. “I should go back to my job at Wal-Mart.”

“You can care for Gabriel after you’re feeling better,” Dr. Bellota said.

“He’ll be feeling better then, too.” She looked down, surprised, as her spoon clattered in the empty bowl.

Dr. Bellota took the tray away, then shook out her pills and handed them to her with a glass of water.

“It’s a gunshot wound. I won’t be one hundred percent for another six months,” Gabriel assured her.

As if that settled everything, Dr. Bellota whipped out his scissors and said, “Gabriel, let’s see that leg and make sure this foolishness of coming home didn’t cause a setback that will knock you off your feet for a lot longer than six months.” He set to work cutting off the bandage, and by the time he had cleaned the wound, rewrapped it, and scolded Gabriel again for leaving the hospital . . . Hannah was asleep. Not just slightly asleep—profoundly asleep, with her hand tucked under her cheek and her mouth slightly opened like a child’s.

Dr. Bellota took her pulse again and, with the familiarity of long acquaintance, said, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Gabriel Prescott, holding that woman hostage.”

“Before she came here, she lived in a hospice. Surely this is better than that.”

Dr. Bellota plowed on as if Gabriel hadn’t spoken. “She’s been a nurse, no doubt about it. Why she would lie, I don’t know, but it can’t be good.”

“I sleep lightly. She won’t turn over without me knowing.”

“You sleep lightly? You were out like a light when I . . . oh.” Dr. Bellota sighed. “You’re swearing off your pain meds.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a fool, but as long as you keep taking your antibiotics, you’ll be okay,” Dr. Bellota said. “I’m sending Dr. Holloway over this afternoon to work on her wrist, and I’ll be back tomorrow to check you both.”

“We’ll look forward to that. There’s nothing I like as much as having some ham-fingered guy poke around in an open wound.”

“Could be worse. Could be a prostate exam.” Dr. Bellota sounded cheerful enough, but he frowned as he packed his travel bag.

“Dean, I do know what I’m doing.” Gabriel relaxed back on the pillows. “Do you know the saying ‘Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer’? I’m keeping her close.”

“Which is she, a friend or an enemy?”

Gabriel smiled bitterly. “She’s worse than an enemy. She’s an old lover—and I’m not done with her yet.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Hannah stretched as she woke, feeling lazy, thinking she would spend the whole day reading the funnies and watching baseball.

It was Sunday, wasn’t it?

Unhurriedly, she opened her eyes—and Gabriel was watching her.

She was instantly wide-awake, stiff and still as a rabbit beneath a mountain lion’s scrutiny. “Hello.”
Great conversation starter.

“You look better.” He leaned on his elbow, in her personal space again.

“Thanks, I guess.” She dragged the covers up to her chin and sat up.

“No use being modest. You’ve been sleeping next to me for three days.” A half smile played on his lips. “If there’s anything to see, I’ve seen it.”

She glared down at him, offended, while he lounged around on her half of the bed.

“There
is
nothing to see,” he reminded her. “You’re wearing my pajamas. They’re boring.”

“Right.” He wasn’t looking at her like they were boring.

“Besides, if I’d had any thoughts of frolicking, the snoring would have put me off.”

Her teeth snapped together. “So you’re a sensitive soul.”

“I don’t think so, but women don’t usually sleep while they’re in my bed, so I don’t know for sure.” He laughed.

But it was probably true. “You really are a jerk. And get over to your own side of the bed!” With her good hand, she shoved at his chest.

He tumbled over, still laughing, and when she went to give him a smack for good measure, he caught her wrist.

Her irritation faded.

His amusement died.

As they looked at each other, her breath caught in her throat, and she felt something she hadn’t felt since . . . well, since a year ago Halloween. The memory of Trent, and the party, and that one brief, magical dance, had the effect of making her snatch her hand away. “I . . . need . . . to . . . use . . . the facilities.” She inched off the bed, never taking her eyes off Gabriel.

Because he never took his eyes off
her
, not even when she turned her back and hurried toward the bathroom. She knew, because she felt his gaze.

She shut the door behind her. She locked it, although why, she didn’t know. He probably had a key. But he also gave off vibes like, on the briefest pretext, he’d join her in the shower. She believed in sending a message, and that message was
no
.

She took care of the most pressing matters, then saw a new pair of women’s gray cotton lounge pants and a cornflower blue racer-back shirt laid out on the counter. A plastic bag, the perfect size for wrapping her wrist, and a rubber band had been placed on top of the clothes.

Was Gabriel trying to send
her
a message?

She looked in the mirror.

Probably he was. She’d been sleeping for days, waking only to eat, a lot, and brush her teeth, and now she looked like Rip Van Winkle without the beard.

She flipped on the shower, covered her cast, and headed into the huge shower stall.

It was great. It was beyond great, with showerheads that squirted her in all the right places and some of the wrong ones, an overhead rainstorm that sprayed at random times, and a dozen different shampoos and soaps.

She was in love . . . with a shower.

She also, for the first time in a year, felt like herself. She wasn’t exhausted. She wasn’t hungry. She wasn’t scared. She was Hannah Grey, and standing here in Gabriel Prescott’s shower, she realized she had to make plans to do something besides run. She stilled, and thought hard.

She could not scuttle across the face of America forever. Even if Carrick hadn’t found her, she was slowly wearing down, becoming someone driven by fear and sorrow, always running and going nowhere. She had to make a plan. She had to do something that would stop this madness.

She had to go to the cops or the feds or . . . someone.

She took a long breath of steamy air.

And she would. But first, she was going to enjoy her shower—she sniffed all the shampoos and decided on bitter orange—and take a moment to luxuriate in this time of safety. Not even the bothersome bandage could lessen her pleasure as she soaped and scrubbed and finally stood there in bliss.

One thought disturbed her peace.

What was she going to do about the unwelcome sense of closeness she experienced with Gabriel? For three days, she’d slept with the guy. On the rare occasions she woke up, he was always stirring, and he personally poked food down her throat as if he was an eagle and she his chick. She didn’t
know
him, but at the same time . . . last night, some instinct brought her to consciousness. She lay on her side, facing away from him, tucked into his body, his arms around her. He had been breathing deeply, as if he was asleep, but at the same time, a hard-on pressed against her rear.

She knew guys got involuntary erections at night. More important, she was wearing his pajamas and he was wearing underwear and a T-shirt, so they were well clothed. And he had never touched her intimately; he’d never twitched a finger toward sexual harassment. But that erection made her realize a couple of things she’d been steadfastly ignoring.